Why liberalism is a Sisyphean task.

I'm a social liberal through and through. By this I mean that I truly believe that a sentient, consenting adult ought not to be constrainted in their thoughts, views, expressions and behaviours, provided they do no harm to another. In parallel I believe that others should accept and respect the views and choices of others, neither judging nor discriminating. Or something very close to that anyway. (OK - I know that harm can appear in many forms - but guiding principles have to start somewhere)

On this basis, I must grant someone whose views I utterly oppose airtime equivalent to anyone else with an equivalent public mandate. Thus Nick Griffin must be heard. Censorship is fuel to the censored. Sunshine is the best bleach, etc.

So, I watched tonights BBC QT debate with some hesitation. Did the act of watching provide succour to the BNP? (I usually watch QT anyway, so I claim a 'no' to that question). Would the other panelists deliver as interrogators - and if they did would NG emerge as vanquished, victor, or victim?

The programme left me a little querulous. Jack Straw looked terrified - too much to lose if he cocked up, I thought. Chris Hulne was largely left out of it. Bonnie Greer flipped between mock flirting and sliding a flick knife between Nick Griffin's ribs - an approach which seemed to leave the flummoxed BNP leader flipping between asking her out and choking on his own vomit, which was most entertaining. Baroness Warsi did the most effective job, I thought, in offering potential BNP voters an alternative, for which I guess I'm grateful.

Most of the audience questions were answered by the other panelists with a direct, or glancing attack on the BNP, even when they were not always the direct object of the question. When Nick Griffin was questioned, he either deflected the question or began a very direct response. And the more explicit his answers became, the greater were the interjections from the panel. I found myself shouting at the TV - 'Sssshhhh - let him speak, let him pursue his own arguments until they run out of line, let him hang himself high and dry'. Time and again he might have swung from his own gallows but was hauled down mid-choke by his opponents for further clarification. 'Put him in the sun', I yelled, to no-one in particular 'let us see clearly what he is'. But no, each time he was released to hide behind a cloud and dust himself down: the ends of his reasoning lay silent and unexplored.

For example, his answer to his alleged holocaust denial was to say that he had recently changed his mind, but could not explain why because [European holocaust denial laws] prevented him from clarifying. Jack Straw offered him - somewhat implausibly - immunity from prosecution to say what he really thought, but he demurred and the debate moved on. Et cetera.

Nick Griffin is able to speak on national TV, thanks in part to the principles of free speech and free expression that I uphold. It is hard to fight vehemently against Nick Griffin's racist, homophobic principles, yet uphold equally his right to be heard. Sisyphus would surely sympathise.

Masterchef - the last days of Rome?

Why does Masterchef make me feel so very uncomfortable? I can't precisely put my finger on it, but it revolves somewhere around the obsessive perfectionism combined with the obvious waste of superb quality food.

I know that tons of food are thrown away every day and that the Masterchef competition discards less than a full stop on a hot air balloon, in the grand scheme of things. I know that in restaurants around the globe people expect and are prepared to pay the equivalent of some peoples' annual income for one exceptionally imaginative and exquisite meal. I also acknowledge the talent, skill and creativity of those involved. I know these things, yet still... In the end the diner looks at it for a few moments, puts it in their mouth, experiences aroma, flavour and texture, then swallows it. And that's it - other than the unavoidable processes of digestion and excretion to follow. Essentially, it ends up as fuel and waste.

So accepting that as too simplistic, and great food is also culture, pleasure, art and joy, what are we to make of such extraordinary investment in something so completely perishable? What does it say about our culture? If you add up the spend of all the Michelin starred restaurants and look at how long their creations last, it makes the government's investment in the Millenium Dome look positively millenial. It makes us a culture focussed on this moment, on personal pleasure and on the aspiration to spend fortunes on the pursuit and claim of the highest pleasures. And probably to chalk them up as notches on the dining table of personal achievement ready for sharing at the next well-attended dinner party.

I would describe someone for whom the creation, presentation, and flavour of Michelin starred food is of such high importance as an aesthete. That must make me a philistine, then. Or a barbarian. Both crop up on internet sites as the opposite of aesthete. But so does ethicist and realist. In my search to understand my instinctive discomfort, I came across Kierkegaard who wrote that the 'aesthete suffers from boredom, melancholy and a sense of emptiness....that his way of life is ultimately nihilistic and tends to lead to despair since pleasure is so transient'. click here for more

Well, that seems like self-justification to me. I can't profess myself blissful in my simplicity. But while so many eat so little, and others eat so much of such poor quality, Masterchef shows me the world in which a few consume the very, very best. Actually they taste a morsel, push it around their plates and declare it fractionally undercooked, or 3 grams under weight, and thus unfit for human consumption. I think it entirely normal, rational and yes, ethical, to find this uncomfortable. And if that makes me a philistine and a barbarian then I'll wear both badges with pride.

Jane Clark on Woman's Hour

Tricky to pick a topic for a first 'non gardening' post, but a recent radio interview has been bugging me for days.

Last week, or maybe the week before, Jane Clark was interviewed on Woman's Hour. 'Jane who?' Jane Clark, you know, much put upon widow of Alan Clark, Tory MP, womaniser and general all-round bastard. 'Ah yes, her.'

I don't expect Woman's Hour to be a right-on feminist programme - I might not listen if it was. However I do expect it to show an fair interest in its interviewees and to share this with listeners. As I heard her being introduced I wondered if this was to be about her post-Alan Clark life, her emergence from behind the veil of his misdemeaners. But no, there is a new film out apparently and the interviewer focussed unswervingly on her husband, his behaviour and her coping/dealing/acceptance of it. She answered with polite, wearily practised answers, like the perfectly decent person she is.

And just when I thought the topic might shift politely to Jane herself, we got the killer question 'How do you feel being continually interviewed about your dead and very bad husband?' I paraphrase, but not much. Subtext - because you're only here because you were once married to an adulterous liar who wrote explicit, revealing diaries about it all and in which you appear largely left out and we're all just a bit curious. How does that feel Jane, how difficult is that to be continually asked about? Can you elaborate a bit more? What exactly is it like to be so used and abused? And to have it written about for all the world to read?

And that was it. Not one question about her own life, her interests, her post-Alan Clark life. On Woman's Hour of all places. If I were Jane I'd have given the microphone an almighty punch and stormed out. Of course, the serene and accommodating Jane Clark didn't.

Perhaps she's used to this and takes it in her stride as part of some pact with the media to publicise material that she gets a return on. In which case, fine, we all have interests to defend. But if not - then Jane, stick two fingers up at the prying media and go and have some fun on your own terms.

More to life than gardening.

Occasionally I buy gorgeous blank hardback books and persuade myself that I'll write something interesting in them. But faced with the starkness of the bare paper, the terrifying permanence of the ink and the unnattractiveness of my own handwriting I scribble a few inconsequential sentences and shove the now sullied book in a drawer.

So I've given up on paper and will scribble here instead.